


Expanding the Dreamscape

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: femslash_minis, F/F, Slayer Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-05
Updated: 2005-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lesson in the proper use of Slayer gifts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expanding the Dreamscape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remember_nomore](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=remember_nomore).



> Written to the prompt, "Faith trying to convince Tara to try something new." Thanks to invisionary for a wonderful beta.

"I know you."

"No shit." Faith flips her hair in conscious imitation of Buffy, smirking like she owns this dreamscape, which she does -- these black walls and this cold floor didn't come from the blonde-and-beautiful dreamwitch. They're hers.

"No, I know you. You..."

"Pretended to be Slayer the First, Miss Buffy Summers, Queen of Sunnydale?" She's sick of the hair-twirling; it doesn't suit her, and she doesn't want anyone to think that she enjoyed her stint in Buffy's too-perfect body. "How's she doing, anywho? Good? Keeping up the kill count?"

"I'm not here to t-talk about her," the girl says. Willow's girlfriend. Tara. The stutter gives her away, but otherwise she's bigger than she really is, like the dreamworld gives her substance she doesn't own. Like the dreamworld knows who she's supposed to be and not the mask she wears. "I have something to tell you."

"Yeah? I'm all ears." Faith wishes she had a fucking stake, but the way this redemption thing is working out, there are no weapons, not in her cell (not that she'd expect them there), not even in her dreams. Sometimes she can't tell the difference between the real cell and the place she goes in her dreams. It's dark here, and eerie in a way that no free place could be. This is hell.

"It's not," Tara says softly.

"It sure isn't heaven."

"What's between heaven and hell?"

"What is this, a pop quiz?" Faith asks her. "I don't have to answer your questions." She tries to turn away, but everywhere there's Tara. She's suddenly feeling kinda bad about the crack she made when they met. "Hey," she tries. "Sorry." It's like she's her mother all over again, twelve-steppin' and making amends. But somehow it seems right. And Tara's smile is enough to make you want to apologize forever if she'll smile just one second longer.

"I'm not the one who has to forgive you," Tara says. "I don't even have to see you. It's your face in the mirror."

"Screw the cryptic."

"Counting down," Tara tells her. "Little Miss Muffet."

"That had better be a come-on, because I've so had enough of screwy Slayer-dreams. I thought I might get a break, seeing as how I can't actually slay anything in this shithole."

And Tara _expands_. Everything's Tara, everywhere she looks. It's no trick, and she can't escape. Tara's making her feel things that are so terrifying and painful they make guilt feel like a walk in the graveyard. She wants to get down on her knees and not in a dirty way. She wants to be part of whatever it is Tara's hooked into.

"Stop that." That's not what she meant to say, and Tara doesn't respond anyway. She just keeps on expanding, reaching past the walls of the weird black-and-red of Faith's dreamworld, breaking through the walls that Faith's been banging her head against for weeks, pushing through them like they're paper. "Fuck, _stop_ it."

And she does. Suddenly she's normal-sized again, and everything is right -- dream-right -- the two of them sitting together on a marble floor, Tara's hands sweeping everywhere, making the floor and the ceiling shine too brightly. She looks up, quirks a smile at Faith. Doesn't matter if it was meant to be inviting or not; Tara's got a smile that shines "fuck me." Well, _yeah_. But when she tries to crawl closer, Tara just recedes, smiling come-hitherly and moving her hands like a fucking tease. If she touched Faith with those hands... but she doesn't. And Faith gets that that's Just The Way It Is.

"Why do you come here? It doesn't seem like, you know, your kind of place." Tara looks at her so innocent, Faith knows she's not trying to make her guilty. The guilt's coming from inside; it always does.

"I don't _want_ to come here. Not like I have much choice, when I'm asleep."

"You have a choice when you're awake, though." How can a voice that soft have so much metal in it?

"I just chose, okay? Hey, you know what we could do?"

"We couldn't," Tara says.

"You don't even know..."

"I know. That's not what this is for. Y-you should respect that."

"Like I always show so much respect for the Slayer gifts. Faster, stronger, fuckin' _better_. I don't know why we can't..."

"We can't."

"You try?"

"No."

"Then why can't...?"

Tara sighs. "Try to touch me." Faith does, can almost feel Tara's soft hair in her fingers, but when she thinks she has hold of a strand, Tara's gone, encompassing universes, making the cell into a desert, making the desert into an ocean.

"Okay, what was that?"

"I'm not who you think."

"Willow's witch girlfriend."

"That's not the sum of me."

"Are you going to remember this when you wake up?"

Tara's small again, and has her hand on Faith's cheek. How come _she_ can and Faith can't? How come things aren't fair, how come Buffy had a mom who loved her and...

"Yes," Tara says, and kisses Faith like she knows a secret. It's too quick, but it's not like any kiss Faith's ever known, and she'll always be able to remember it, how soft it was, how much she wanted it not to end. "I'll remember that," she says. "I'll feel horrible about it and wonder why I dreamed it when I love someone else."

"Are you really her?" It's a very important question, all of a sudden.

"It doesn't matter," Tara says. "That's not what I came here to tell you." And Faith wakes up.


End file.
